Seminole Tells Story Of Changing Culture

Seven-year-old Matthew Jackson had never seen a Seminole Indian before, so he was curious.

``Do you take a bath?`` he asked.

June Tiger, 36, a full-blooded Indian with dark skin, high cheekbones and long, straight, black hair, laughed.

``Yes. We use regular soap like you all do,`` she told Matthew and the 60 other children at the Percy White Library in Deerfield Beach.

``And we use shampoo and toothpaste,`` she added with a grin.

Dressed in a native white and black skirt and not-so-native T-shirt and using words as her only tools, Tiger wove an image of her life on the reservation in Hollywood. The children listened intently.

Tiger, a cultural education teacher for the tribe in south Broward County, told the children about the customs of her people and some of the problems they face.

``We eat pork, deer, turtle. Have any of you eaten turtles?`` she asked.

``Yuk,`` some of the children yelled back while others said they had.

Many of the young Indians, including her own four children, no longer speak the tribe`s native tongue, Tiger said.

``Some of our customs are dying. I teach our children how to do bead work and how to speak our language, but it is hard because we live in the city,`` Tiger said. ``When I grew up, Indian was my first language. Now English is the first language.``

Tiger is one of 12 children her parents raised in a village along the Tamiami Trail. Her own mother speaks no English and cannot talk to her grandchildren.

Tiger`s childhood was much different from her audience`s, she told them.

``When I was your age, we didn`t have electricity. We used kerosene lamps. When we first got electricity, I remember it was so bright! It was like daylight to me,`` she said.

When she was through, Tiger invited the children to see the Indian village set up on the reservation. There they could see the chickees, or houses, for themselves, and watch alligator wrestling, she said.

Small Matthew Jackson, who was so wonderstruck during Tiger`s talk, said he`d like to visit the reservation.

``I think Indians are neat,`` he said, ``and, if you ask a lot of questions, you can learn a lot about them.``

Katherine LaFontaine, the children`s librarian at the Deerfield Beach facility, said she invited Tiger to speak as part of her ``Footloose in Florida`` summer program.